Voters ready to resist violence

Zimbabweans are not likely to be cowed into changing their vote on polling day, despite reports of widespread politically motivated violence and intimidation, a regional analyst told IRIN.

Richard Cornwell, a senior researcher at the South African-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), believes that the violence will not change the way people vote in Zimbabwe's presidential election on 9 and 10 March.

"Although the situation is extremely violent and people are frightened there is a growing suspicion that whatever [happens] ... the poll will be fairly open," he said.

President Robert Mugabe faces the toughest challenge to his two decade rule in Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Cornwell also rejected an alarming report by a US-based organisation, Genocide Watch. The rights group said the situation in Zimbabwe had reached a point where genocide was a possibility, contending that Mugabe's regime was pitting the majority Shona ethnic group (representing 80 percent of the population), against the Ndebele, who are perceived as backing the MDC.

Genocide Watch said the current situation raised the spectre of mass killings on the scale of the Matabeleland massacres in 1982-1983, when government troops brutally supressed a dissident campaign in the south of the country, the Ndebele heartland. http://www.genocidewatch.org

But Cornwell rejected the assertion. "We know there's political killing going on [but] I don't agree [with Genocide Watch] ... quite frankly it's a far different situation to what we've seen in Rwanda, Burundi and even West Africa, [where] there was the targeting of ethnic groups," he said.

"In Zimbabwe Ndebele tend to be targeted because they are known to be opposed to Mugabe's rule but a large number of Shona are also known to be targeted [by ZANU-PF], this [Genocide Watch] sort of analysis does nobody any favours."

"The greatest threat to human life is not the political situation. It is the outgrowth of the political situation, in the form of economic collapse and the dearth of staple foodstuffs and/or the means to acquire them," he added.

Cornwell forecasted that a Mugabe win in the presidential elections was far from certain. "There's a groundswell, although this is anecdotal and impressionistic, there [in Zimbabwe]. There are certain signs that Mugabe could be in a lot more trouble than he imagines, whether this will dawn on him and prompt him to take more drastic measures, such as the banning of Tsvangirai's candidacy, remains to be seen," he said.

Like many analysts Cornwell believes that the withdrawal of European Union election observers this week "certainly makes it easier to commit [human rights] abuses" for the purpose of political intimidation.

Cornwell's view on the poll outcome has some support, judging from a recent report in Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper. The Daily News published the results of a poll in which nearly 20 percent of the 1,693 people surveyed in rural and urban areas said they would vote for Tsvangirai.

This was against 11 percent who said they would vote for Mugabe. Tellingly, or not, in a climate in which it's dangerous to openly declare support for Tsvangirai, nearly 60 percent refused to say how they would vote.

The poll was conducted by a university-based organisation called the Mass Public Opinion Institute.